


when you watch the stars i'm watching you

by victoriousscarf



Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 1950s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - High School, Multi, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Suburbia, suburbs are litmal spaces to begin with, they bond over the space race
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21728890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: Some nights when John’s hands felt jittery and his mind was going a hundred miles an hour he would run around the neighborhood, whether it was morning or night. He would pull on his shoes and go around in circles just to move.And if it was night, he would usually find Rodney McKay sitting on his roof outside of his bedroom window. Most of the time he was looking at the sky, not at John, and John never really knew if Rodney noticed him, going around and around like a big cat stuck in a zoo.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 14
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know, I watched Grease in the middle of watching Stargate Atlantis and then got really emotional about them being stupid teenagers during the early space race. Starts autumn 1957 because I make liberal references to Sputnik 1.

They lived on the same street.

John wasn’t sure why, considering his parents had money and well Rodney’s—they didn’t.

But they lived on the same street, in a new patch of suburban sprawl, and they went to the same school, and John didn’t really know Rodney that well. He knew of him, because no one could sit in a science class with Rodney McKay and _not_ know him.

He also knew of him because some nights when John’s hands felt jittery and his mind was going a hundred miles an hour he would run around the neighborhood, whether it was morning or night. He would pull on his shoes and go around in circles just to move.

And if it was night, he would usually find Rodney McKay sitting on his roof outside of his bedroom window. Most of the time he was looking at the sky, not at John, and John never really knew if Rodney noticed him, going around and around like a big cat stuck in a zoo.

One night he found himself stopping in front of McKay’s house, because he was out of breath. When he looked over, he saw the lights on in the kitchen, but no one was there. For a minute he let himself look, because his parents were obsessive about the curtains at night, not wanting anyone to peek into their lives.

Which was weird, considering they had moved from _land_ to be here.

But he found himself looking at the McKay’s furniture, the small worn out table, the piano stuck in the back of the room, the table cloth runner that looked like it had been hand stitched by someone’s grandma.

He forced his legs back into motion after that, going around the block another two times before finally slinking home. He always went in the back door, hoping to get to the stairs from the kitchen before his parents noticed.

A few weeks later he ended up partnered with Rodney during biology, the one science that the other boy seemed to hate. “So,” Rodney said, holding a scalpel and frowning at a diagram. “You trying out for track?”

“What?” John asked, because they had lived on the same street for two years, and gone to school just as long, and he could count on one hand the number of conversations they actually _had_. He knew more about Rodney than Rodney probably knew about him, because Rodney had a loud voice and a mouth that never seemed to stop. Half the school knew Rodney. 

It was a big school.

“Are you trying out for track?” Rodney repeated, a bit slower and still not looking at him.

“Why would I be trying out for track?” John asked.

“Because you run practically every single night,” Rodney said, finally looking over at him and so much for wondering if Rodney noticed him or not.

“I, I’m not trying out for track,” John managed.

“Well, you might consider it,” Rodney said and then started muttering something about biology being a waste of time when he could be working on _theory_. For a minute John just sat there before he reached a hand out, and said if it bothered Rodney so much he could take the scalpel and finish the lab.

John took the conversation and tucked it somewhere in his chest, because Rodney had become a constant in his life due to simple proximity. But that was all, they didn’t have even the seeds of a relationship, let alone a friendship.

But apparently for Rodney proximity and the fact John didn’t punch him in the face suddenly meant they were friends.

Because two nights later when John came around the curl of the cul-de-sac, he didn’t find Rodney sitting on the roof, but standing in his front yard, as if waiting for him. John slowed, almost tripped, and then jogged the last few steps. “Hey.”

“How are you not freezing?” Rodney asked, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“Because I’m running,” John said.

“Right, right,” Rodney said, like he hadn’t been standing there, just waiting for John to come around.

“Is there something I can—” John started, wondering if he was being arrogant for thinking Rodney might have been there for him, and not just taking out the trash or something.

One of Rodney’s shoulders rolled in a shrug, even though he didn’t pull his hands out of his pocket. “Just wanted to say hi,” he mumbled.

“Hi,” John said and one of Rodney’s brows quirked and his mouth almost twisted into a smile.

“So if you’re not trying out for track, why do you run so much?” Rodney asked.

“Not much else to do,” John said.

“Sure there is,” Rodney said and he suddenly tipped his head back to look up at the sky.

“What,” John started and Rodney waved a hand at him before pointing up.

“See, there,” Rodney said, pointing at something up above and John frowned up at the sky.

“See what?”

“Sputnik,” Rodney said.

John blinked at him before giving another uneasy look up to the sky. “You mean the Russian satellite. You think it was just overhead?”

“I was waiting for it,” Rodney said. “It’s not that difficult to track it’s movements.”

“You think you can see it with the naked eye?” John asked and Rodney shrugged.

“It’s easier with binoculars.”

“Sure,” John said after a beat. “Is—is that why you always sit on the roof?”

Rodney’s eyes darted over. “Excuse me?”

“Is that why you’re always up on the roof?” John asked, gesturing up to Rodney’s usual spot. “Stargazing?”

“You,” Rodney blinked. “You noticed that?”

“I go running by your house almost every night,” John said. “It’s not like it’s impossible to notice you up there.”

“Right,” Rodney said. “Didn’t think you noticed.”

“Honestly, I was wondering if you ever noticed me down here, with you up there,” John said and Rodney blinked again, something in his expression. “Especially if you’re up there looking at the stars.”

“I’m going to study them,” Rodney said, firmly and John wondered what it would be like to be that certain of anything.

“Space, huh?” he asked. “I thought you were also interested in physics.”

Rodney opened his mouth before he tilted his head. “You noticed that, huh?”

John wondered if it was dark enough to hid the color he could feel on his cheeks. “You’re not really quiet,” he said. “I’ve been in science classes with you before.”

“Yes, well,” Rodney said. “There’s such a thing as astrophysics, you know. I can certainly do both,” and John found himself grinning.

“Well, that’s good,” he said and Rodney tipped his head back for a moment.

“You know,” he said, bringing his gaze back down to Earth and John. “It’s not like astrophysics is a new field or anything. It’s been around a long time, in fact honestly it’s founder was—”

And before he knew it, John had stood in Rodney’s yard for almost an hour, listening to him talk about space and distance and stars and the Russians with their satellite and he hadn’t felt the jittery feeling that made him run from house to house the entire time.

He wasn’t sure if Rodney’s parents noticed them out there, but when he got home his brother was sitting on the bottom of the stairs, elbows on his knees and John frowned because he was in the middle of the stairs. John couldn’t skirt around him.

“Dave,” he said cautiously.

“You were out for longer than usual,” his brother said.

“I was,” John agreed.

“Why do you leave so much?” Dave asked.

“Because I want to,” John said. “Will you let me up the stairs?” and Dave hesitated, like he might want to say something else before he scooted over.

John took the stairs quickly, thinking maybe another boy might have paused to ruffle his little brother’s hair on the way past.

But then again, he was him and he didn’t.

-0-

Rodney kept meeting him in his yard. John wasn’t even running that much anymore, because he was spending his time with the other boy instead. It didn’t matter that it was dark out and they were outside, because somehow John found himself almost comfortable.

Then Rodney started finding him at school, inserting himself next to John at lunch. John hadn’t even realized that they shared a lunch, but there Rodney was. Teyla arched an eyebrow at John and Ronon only stared at him but Rodney acted like he belonged there. He asked John if he had heard the latest from the United States space program and John admitted no, he hadn’t, so Rodney launched into telling him they were talking about getting a satellite up themselves, since the Russians had beaten them to it.

At first Ronon looked at him like he was insane before he shrugged, and Teyla got a look in her eye that John had never actually seen in any of his parents. It almost looked like she was unbearably fond of him and proud, for having made a whole friend on his own.

Sometimes John didn’t even know how he had ended up with Teyla in the first place. Ronon came later, a distant cousin of hers who moved into town to get away from something. 

“Does this new satellite have a name?” John asked, watching Rodney and Ronon in turn.

“Vanguard,” Rodney said. “Which like, okay, fine.”

“What, you like Sputnik more?” John asked.

“It sounds catchier,” Rodney said. “I can give the Russians credit when it’s deserved.”

“It probably means something stupid,” John said, and Rodney rolled his eyes.

“It means fellow traveler,” he said, still shoving food into his mouth.

“Okay,” John said after a beat. “That is a bit better than vanguard.”

“Sure sounds like it means they’re going to be trying to get up to space soon, to hang out with their fellow,” Rodney said and Teyla was looking between them.

“John, I didn’t know you were this interested in space,” she said, and both John and Rodney looked at her.

“It’s interesting,” John said, almost defensive.

Rodney waved a hand around as if agreement.

“It is,” she agreed. By the end of lunch, she had been giving Rodney a strange look for a while.

“What is it?” John asked later, after Rodney had disappeared almost as quickly as he came.

“Nothing,” she said then paused. “That’s just not what I expected.”

“Why not?” John asked and she looked over and up at him. “Not very many people come and sit at our table, John,” she said before leaving because their next classes were on opposite sides of the campus.

For a second longer John sat there, looking at the table and wondering why it was exactly Rodney had decided to come.


	2. Chapter 2

Rodney wore sweaters.

It wasn’t a detail John thought he would notice, because he hadn’t when they were mostly meeting in the evening and talking in Rodney’s yard. But it became increasingly inescapable fact when Rodney kept joining them for lunch.

It wasn’t that John was unobservant. He knew he had never seen Ronon in anything that wasn’t cuffed jeans and a tee shirt, and he knew which days Teyla would usually show up in a poodle skirt instead of her cropped jeans and jacket. On days when something had gone wrong, somewhere, she wore a skirt, and he couldn’t tell if she looked stiff and uncomfortable on those days because of the skirt, or because the reason she felt she should wear one.

But Rodney wore some version of a sweater every day.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Ronon said, picking his way through his lunch.

“I am not doing the thing,” John said. “Because there is no thing I do.”

“There is a thing you do,” Ronon said, sounding half bored. “And it’s called staring.”

“I’m not staring,” John said, except he was, he was watching Rodney talk to Teyla across the commons, Teyla in one of her skirts and a sky-blue neckerchief, and Rodney wearing a dull orange sweater.

“You’re staring,” Ronon said.

“What am I staring at?” John asked.

“You’re staring at McKay,” Ronon said and John felt like he had been sucker-punched.

“I am not.”

“You know, you used to stare at him sometimes, but now it’s much, much worse,” Ronon said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John said and Ronon just gave him a long, level look. “I don’t,” John protested again.

“Sure,” Ronon settled for, except it was obvious he was allowing John to get away with what he was saying, instead of agreeing with him.

The problem was, John finally admitted to himself, was that Rodney in sweaters looked soft. And he wasn’t soft, he was pointy and acerbic and loud. But the sweaters made John want to wrap his hands around his waist and press in there, because it made Rodney look approachable, even if his mouth did not.

But the more he watched Rodney, the worse it got. Because he could also see the way people tended to part around him, like they wanted to make sure he didn’t get close. Ronon sometimes got the same reaction, but for a very different reason. The more he watched, the more he realized that Rodney had specific smiles for different people, and that the one he had for John was only shared with Ronon, Teyla, and Carson Beckett, who John hadn’t even known before Rodney started joining them for lunch.

John refused to be jealous of the fact he shared that smile with anyone.

-0-

Eventually Rodney allowed John up to the roof with him. He crawled out of his bedroom window to get there, and John climbed up the porch to meet him.

“Do your parents even get along?” John asked one night, because sometimes they could hear the fights.

“No,” Rodney said.

“Mine either,” John said, and Rodney had curled his knees up, hugging them against his chest.

“Do you think all adults are like that?” he asked.

“No,” John said and Rodney had a pair of binoculars they passed it back and forth, looking up at the sky.

“Teyla still looks at me like she can’t decide if she likes me,” Rodney said after a while too long in silence.

“Does she,” John said, except he forgot to make it a question.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”

“I think she’s surprised is all,” John said.

“It’s been a while,” Rodney said, and it had been. The nights were less cold, and Rodney had switched to _sweater vests_.

“Yeah, and you’re still,” and John shrugged.

“Still what?” Rodney asked.

“Their race,” John said finally and Rodney actually set the binoculars in his lap to stare at John.

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“The fact that very few people sit with them,” John said.

“ _You_ do,” Rodney said.

“Yeah,” John said. “But I’m me.”

“I think I’m offended,” Rodney said.

“I’m weird,” John added.

“This isn’t the South,” Rodney snapped. “Why would it even matter?”

“Because it always matters,” John said and Rodney huffed.

“It’s a stupid thing to care about.”

“Yeah, obviously,” John said and Rodney finally cracked a smile at him.

“You really think that’s why she’s bothered?” Rodney asked.

“Yeah,” John said.

“Ronon meanwhile,” Rodney started. “Has already made up his mind.”

“I wouldn’t take him at face value,” John said, because sometimes Ronon meant something very different from what he said.

“Alright,” Rodney said, and tipped his head back to the sky.

John stayed late enough they almost fell asleep there. Instead he slunk home, and climbed the porch to his own window instead of risking the stairs. He was getting a lot of practice climbing.

-0-

“Where have you been keeping yourself these days?” his father asked the next day when John couldn’t miss him at breakfast. He was trying to shovel toast into his mouth and walk at the same time, but when his father spoke to him, he had to stop and backtrack into the dining room.

“Sir?” he asked.

“Where have you been keeping yourself these days?” Patrick Sheppard asked, looking at him over the top of the newspaper.

“With friends, mostly,” he said, tone idle.

His father’s eyes flickered up. “You’ve been staying out with them late,” he said, like he thought they were a bad influence.

John thought for a second about the way his hands twitched when he was around Rodney, the way he wanted to wrap his hands in his _stupid_ sweaters and press their mouths together. That would certainly count as a bad influence to his father. “We stargaze,” he said instead and that was obviously not the answer anyone expected.

Even Dave twisted around in his chair to stare at John.

Patrick set down the newspaper entirely. “You stargaze?”

“He’s going to be an astrophysicist,” John said and felt some strange thrill at how surprised they looked. “So yeah, we mostly sit on his roof and look at the sky.”

Patrick cleared his throat. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Right now?” John asked, gesturing with the hand holding the toast at his watch, because eventually he would be late for school.

“Later,” Patrick said and hesitated again, like he wanted to ask something more, before he went back to his newspaper. John fled when he still had the chance.

Except it felt like a rock in his stomach all day, wondering what his father would say. Maybe he had decided they were moving back to the country. Maybe he decided it was time to divorce his second wife, the way he had John’s mother. Maybe—

“You’re doing the other thing you do,” Ronon said, waving a hand at him.

“ _Which_ thing?” John said, almost a growl and Rodney’s head jerked up abruptly from the book he was reading with one hand, eating an apple with the other.

“The fretting thing,” Ronon said and Teyla ducked her head down to hide what was obviously a smile.

“I am not a housewife, who frets,” John said.

“You do fret,” Ronon said.

“Alright, what am I fretting about?” John asked.

Ronon shrugged. “I have no idea. I just know you are.”

“Uh-huh,” John said, but when he looked over, Rodney was frowning at him.

“Are you alright?” he asked, a furrow between his brows.

“I’m fine,” John said, too quickly.

“Alright,” Rodney said, but he didn’t go back to his book for the rest of lunch. John reminded himself there was no reason to be flattered.

-0-

It turned out his father had bought him a car. He didn’t even have to say anything about why this had happened for John to know it for the bribe it was.

His father was hoping if he gave John the barest inch of freedom, John would accept it and not ask for more. Part of him wanted to resent it as much as the rest of him wanted to run.

He was miles away, having wasted no time in peeling out of the driveway, when he realized he hadn’t gone running around the block in months, not the way he used to. Because instead he sprawled out on Rodney’s roof and let him tear open the universe inch by inch for him instead.

Without really thinking about it, he turned the car back around, pulling up into Rodney’s cul-de-sac.

Rodney was on the roof already but he sat bolt upright when John waved at him.

It took him several minutes to get down, and a few more to say something to his parents to get him out of the house. “What on—”

“It’s a bribe,” John said.

“That’s a bribe?” Rodney asked, standing next to the open window. “For _what_?”

“Do you want to go driving?” John asked instead.

“Do you even know how?” Rodney asked.

“Well, I haven’t crashed so far,” John said and Rodney seemed doubtful. “I took driver’s ed back when they offered it, promise.”

“You didn’t have a car then,” Rodney said.

“Well, I do now,” John said and after another second of deliberation, Rodney went around the side and slid in.

Driving off with Rodney beside him felt even better than driving alone had and it didn’t even matter to John that they were going around in circles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some references for what Teyla may be wearing: https://www.vintag.es/2018/07/1950s-girls-in-jeans.html


End file.
